Super Bowl Brings Out Partygoers
By Daniel Chang, The Miami Herald
Jan. 16–Tickets to Super Bowl XLI in Miami will be expensive on the resale market, about $2,700 each for upper end zone seats in Dolphin Stadium, according to a number of online brokers.
Tickets to the Super Bowl Playboy party at AmericanAirlines Arena the night before the big game? A cool $2,500 apiece, sold by the same brokers.
When a party costs nearly as much to attend as the main event, priorities may appear to be skewed. But the Super Bowl is the biggest game in sports, which means everyone’s hosting a party — celebrities, athletes, sports agents, cheerleaders and a number of companies pitching their brands.
“The Super Bowl used to be a one-day event, but now it’s turned out to be a weeklong activity,” said Todd Rubin, owner of Todd’s Tickets, a brokerage with locations in the Aventura Mall, Bal Harbour Shops and Boca Town Center. “There’s players parties. There’s commissioner parties. There’s the Maxim [magazine] party, the Playboy party, the Penthouse party.”
With so many parties peddled on the resale market for Super Bowl weekend, party hosts are warning revelers to be careful when laying out thousands for a ticket, because it just might be bogus.
Playboy spokeswoman Lauren Melone was surprised to hear that tickets to the magazine’s party were fetching so much online.
“We have not announced a venue yet, and we have not printed or distributed any tickets,” Melone said.
Each year, Playboy hosts a seductive Super Bowl soiree brimming with celebrities, athletes and models in body paint.
The magazine distributes tickets to celebrities, athletes, corporate sponsors and advertisers.
“A very few are sold to consumers through Playboy.com and Playboy’s holiday gift guide in the December issue,” Melone said.
And though she added that “the resale of tickets is strictly prohibited,” it appears there is little Playboy can do to prevent ticket holders from reselling on the secondary market.
“The ticket resale market is a fluid market in almost every situation,” said Sean Pate, a spokesman for StubHub.com, which allows its users to buy or sell tickets to events. “There are very rare events that will have tickets that are not transferable.”
StubHub, like other ticket brokers, guarantees the validity of its tickets with a refund or a ticket to a comparable event, Pate said.
How do brokers sell event tickets before they are distributed?
They take orders for the tickets beforehand, then buy the tickets once they’re issued and resell them at a profit, said Rubin of Todd’s Tickets.
Getting tickets isn’t the problem, Rubin said, even for the main event.
“We’ve presold tickets to the Super Bowl and the parties already. We have a couple hundred preorders already. But the true market comes in when the two teams are announced . . . even for the parties.”
Demand for tickets picks up in mid- to late-January, once the two teams that will compete for the Vince Lombardi trophy are known, Rubin said.
Generally, Rubin said, the more popular the teams, the more expensive the tickets.
“What we’re hoping for is two teams that are not popular,” he said, “because with the pre-orders we’ve taken, to fill them will cost us less money. If the teams are popular, then it’ll cost us more to fill them.”
Rubin said the host city also affects the demand for event tickets. Last year’s Super Bowl was hosted by Detroit, which Rubin said was “very cold and bitter.
“This city has a more inviting atmosphere, with South Beach and the parties.”
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Miami Herald
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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